Solomon R. Guggenheim

Solomon Guggenheim, of the mining family, began collecting abstract art in the late 1920s under the guidance of the artist Hilla Rebay, and set up a foundation in 1937 to show it publicly, first in a rented space. The spiral Frank Lloyd Wright building on Fifth Avenue opened in 1959, after his death. The foundation now runs museums in New York, Venice and Bilbao and has long planned one in Abu Dhabi; admission is charged.